Developing a proper putting stroke requires hours of practice and patience. Golfers at both beginning and intermediate skill levels are advised to learn the proper putting stroke techniques in order to establish good form and lower their golf scores.
Proper putting technique requires maintaining the club head perpendicular to the desired line of travel of the ball throughout the putting stroke. Deviations from perpendicular head contact result in the ball veering off to one side or the other. In order to achieve the proper stroke, beginning golfers are instructed to move their arms in a pendulum-like motion and to maintain their hands in a fixed position holding the club head perpendicular to the line of sight to the cup. In order to more easily learn this stroke technique, U.S. Pat. No. 5,411,263 to Schmidt et al. shows a putter having a control rail projecting downwardly from a bottom wall to engage the turf and stabilize the head against twist during the head downward placement. However, such a design does not provide feedback to the golfer to alert him that his stroke is not perfectly perpendicular with the desired line of travel of the ball. In addition, the rail shown by Schmidt et al. is a permanent fixture of the putter head and may not be removed once proper stroke technique has been mastered.